Scenes from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I was excited to spend a day/night in Malaysia. Even though my dad is Malaysian and we used to spend Chinese New Years in Klang, a town just 20 miles from Kuala Lumpur where my dad grew up, I haven’t been back in 20 years and was curious to see how much the city has changed. When we landed in Malaysia, we dropped our bags off at the Grand Millennium Hotel located in Bukit Bintang area and went for a stroll around the neighborhood.

Bukit Bintang is a great place to stay because there is something for everyone in the area - there are shops nearby (good for tourists) but there are also a lot of bars and restaurants.

Some of the food that we ate in our short time there:

Chicken rice ~ This is the traditional chicken rice - plain boiled chicken (instead of the soy sauce version that I had in Singapore), served with a bowl of chicken broth, fragrant rice infused with chicken bones, and an array of condiments including dark soy sauce, chili and ginger garlic sauce.

Laksa is also another traditional dish that you can find in Singapore or Malaysia. A spicy coconut curry soup is filled with noodles, fish balls, fried tofu, fish cakes, shrimp, bean sprouts, and if you are lucky, cockles. 

After our meal, we headed to my favorite street Changkat Bukit Bintang that was lined with bars. So many to choose from.  Mainly westernized bars but they seem to attract tourists, expats as well as locals.

Post bar street food is the best thing ever, especially when you only need to walk over to the next street, Jalan Alor.

On our way to Jalan Alor, we stopped by a street food vendor that was grilling up corn on the sidewalk.

The corn smelt amazing and was dipped in a a savory spicy coconut sauce.

Over at Jalan Alor, the street is lined with many food stalls. Because it was 2am, I chose not to scarf down a big plate of food - just a little bite.

Soy sauce chicken wings

Satay ~ chicken and pork, with spicy peanut dipping sauce and served with cucumbers and raw onions. There is something about the chicken in Asia because their satay is always so juicy while the skewers sold in the States tend to be dry (even the dark meat).

Even though we were only in KL for a night, it definitely whet our appetite for the city and can't wait to come back again.